


With/Out Blake

by Ika (Dolores_Crane)



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Multi, Spoilers for all seasons; AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-22
Updated: 2010-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-13 23:13:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 19,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dolores_Crane/pseuds/Ika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blake's name and fame reach far into the Federation's military machine. But is his reputation all it's made out to be? One Federation officer is about to learn the hard way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> First appearance of the original female character Siv Holland. Originally published in the amazing zine _Trooper Orac's Fantastic Plastic Army_.

CHAPTER ONE

Deelan (he's my fiancé) had suddenly been taken off scheduled assignment for some reason, so we'd all gone out the night before, got fucked on alk and the latest drug, E-Soma, and danced our arses off. I was bit the worse for wear and my leg was sore where some twat had burnt it with a cigarette and melted my tights into my skin. It didn't matter, though, because I was going to have a boring-arse day writing reports, checking fleet movements, etc. I wasn't due to go off-doughnut for another four shifts, worse bloody luck.

I stumbled into my office about half an hour late and said hi to everyone in the open-plan bit outside. My secretary, Esh, wasn't at her station. I went into my room and pressed the button to connect to her badge-com, assuming she was off somewhere doing secretary things, but it beeped a reroute and it was the little queer at IntraCom Central who answered. I could never remember his name.

"Space Commander?"

"Oh. Yeah. Where's Esh? Trooper Culver, I mean."

"She's not in today, I'm afraid, sir. Can I help you?"

"No. Except why haven't I got a temp yet? Get one sent up now, all right?"

"I'll get onto the pool for you immediately, sir. I'm very sorry."

"Not your fault, Section Leader."

I cut the voice link, went and got my own coffee (for fucksake), took a couple of pills, necked the pot looking at some hard-copy reports from routine patrols. Nothing interesting. Actually maybe it was a good thing Esh was off today, since I wasn't really up for anything particularly brain-intensive. Something about it bothered me, but I reckoned that could just be hangover paranoia.

So I was sitting in a kind of daze watching the pretty patterns on the screen as the computer thought about its computer stuff, when the IntraCom dinged and what's his name said:

"Space Commander?"

"Yes? What's the problem?"

"I'm afraid we don't have a temp for you today, sir. Nothing I can do. The pool's all out."

Now normally, I would have shouted at him until he _found_ me a fucking temp. This place is absolutely full up with troopers with nothing to do. I'd seen about six of them gossiping away on my way to get coffee. But today I went cold and cut off the link without saying any more.

I reached under my desk and toggled my computer over to the hermit-drive I'd installed.

Bugger, I thought. Bugger, bugger, bugger and fuck and shit. What the _fuck_ am I going to do?

I looked out of the window towards the main door into my area, reached over with my left hand, pressed the button for Deelan.

"Space Commander Rexel."

"Oh, you're there. Good."

"Hi, Siv. What is it?"

"Nothing. Are we having lunch?"

"Okay. I'll come by for you."

"Everything all right there?"

"Fine. Why?"

"Just wondered if there was any reason you'd been taken off schass."

"Same old same old. _Lib_ rumour on some colony out in the sticks. Herself wants it checked."

I was about to ask: "What colony?" when I saw them coming through the door. No fucking time. I should have realized. Twat, Siv, fucking twat. I put in the command and the password for the hermit drive self-destruct sequence: while it was closing down it would send a prearranged signal to Rephlar-12 and, I hoped, to the _Liberator_ , though I'd had to route that one through so many fucking mickey-mouse little stations I never knew when I was getting through, or if. I noticed that my hands were shaking. Alk withdrawal. Plus comedown off the pills. Fucking great time to get arrested.

"Bye, Deelan," I said. "I'm sorry." But I'd cut the link without noticing it.

I walked out of my room into the open area. There were three of them, guard uniform, armed, coming towards me. We stopped about five paces away from each other. All the little troopers stopped pretending to work and started gaping at me.

"Space Commander Holland, you are under arrest for dissident activity, collaboration and related charges. Come with us, please."

Through my hangover, it hardly seemed real. I stared at them with killer stare. I've seen troopers melt into a pile of sweat and organs under that stare. Literally.

"Before I come, I would like to state here that - "

"Come with us, please." Bastard put her hand on my arm. I shook it off.

"Thank you, _Major_. You have made these charges in front of my staff and I insist on having a chance to speak in front of them. I will be protesting the manner of this arrest, and I will state now - " I looked round at my staff - "only that I entirely deny any involvement with these offences. Don't touch me, Major, I will come with you now."

CHAPTER TWO  
(some months earlier)

I woke up all at once, somewhere dark and cramped. I punched the button to my left and the escape pod lid opened up. I sat up, leaned over the side, vomited, and stretched, checking my body for damage. Seemed okay; bit battered, but nothing broken or seriously cut. I hoisted myself out of the pod, on the other side from the pool of sick, and pulled my bag out. There was water in it, food, change of clothes, some basic comm equipment, etc. I took a swig of water and rinsed my mouth.

"Fucking pile of arse," I said aloud, looking around. The sky was absolutely fucked up. Probably fallout from the battle.

There were buildings in the distance. I checked the pod's navigation unit - basic and tiny, but still functioning. I was three miles from Luaka, the main city in the northern land mass of Rephlar-12. A Federation world, but pretty far out. Still, civilisation, up to a point. Decent bars. I started walking.

When I got into the city centre I forced myself to pass at least three bars until I found the government building, and walked in. There was a little civilian lass sitting at reception.

"Hi," I said, and showed my ID card. "Space Commander Holland. I've just landed, about five fucking miles away, in an escape pod. Can you patch me through to Space Command, love?"

"I'll try, sir," she said without meeting my eyes. "Communications are unreliable at the moment."

"Do your best," I said, and had a little sit down in a chair.

"I have the link for you now, sir," she said after about ten minutes.

"Thanks, doll," I said and went over to the communicator desk.

"Space Commander Holland. Ship's gone down. I'm in Luaka, on Rephlar-12. How soon can you get me picked up?"

"Please hold."

"No, fuck you, I will _not_ hold. Who is this? Get someone to come and pick me up _now_ , damn you."

"We're a little overstretched, Space Commander. There is a war on, you know."

"Yes, I fucking know, I'm a fucking war hero. Come and get me picked up so I can get my medals."

"The Supreme Commander has left orders - "

" _Left_ orders? Where the hell is she?"

"Out on active service, sir. She's left orders that distress calls are to be answered in strict order of rank and priority."

"Yeah, well, how many Admirals have you had calling in?"

"Are you injured, sir? You don't sound like you're injured."

"Less of your fucking lip. No, I am not injured, but I am a Space Commander and I expect that counts for something even with Servalan. Get me picked up now."

"Approximately thirty Rephlar-12 days," she said briefly. "Await further contact."

"Thirty _days_?" I howled. "Tell Herself I've found the fucking *Liberator*. Bet that'd put me right at the top of her priority list, you know, not like just winning the fucking _war_ for her." But the link had broken down.

I turned round to the little girl at reception. "Where am I going to stay?"

"Well, sir, if you fill out a chit I _could_ organize a hotel room for you on your expense account, temporarily, but I'll have to get authorization from the Governor, and he's..."

"Oh, fuck it," I said. "I'll find somewhere myself."

Fucking civilians. Fucking bureaucracy. Bunch of wank.

I went off into the town centre and looked about for somewhere to have a drink. All the expensive places were absolutely dead, and I needed noise and people around me, to revive me a bit. I was always like that. I ended up in some complete pit, dreadful music, smoke, alk you had to drink in quarts to get any kick out of, etc.

"Do you rent rooms?" I asked the guy behind the bar. "Only I'm planning to be too pissed to get anywhere by the end of the night."

"Sure," he said. "Double or single?"

"Ask me at closing time," I said. He laughed, and I winked at him.

I bought a few drinks and went and sat at the edge of the only table with space. There was no way I was going to stand, my feet were killing me. There were a couple of blokes sat there drinking some sort of ale or something and smoking horrible cheap filterless cigarettes. They went a bit quiet when I sat down. I wondered whether it was the tits or the uniform.

"Can I have a tab?" I said. I hadn't thought to put any in my emergency kit, for some reason, probably because I was a fucking idiot and I'd used the space for coke, and I hadn't had one for hours.

They passed the packet over in silence. I had to ask for a light as well.

I downed my first drink and had a smoke and a think. It had been a pretty confusing couple of weeks. I was troubled, and it wasn't a sensation I enjoyed.

What had happened, basically, was that, firstly, my ship had been damaged. We'd had to make an emergency landing on a frontier planet which was being used for refits, recrews etc, and I'd ended up being assigned to some crappy little pursuit ship with a crew of two, me and a lass called Truse, who'd _deserted_ , can you believe it, got in a pod and buggered off on the way back to the combat. She'd been in no fit state to fly in the first place and it was really the Major's fault for sending her back out, but there was _no-one left_ , our forces had been absolutely royally fucked, it was unbelievable, chaos and shouting, people contradicting themselves, casualties everywhere, people screaming, I'd never seen anything like it, so, well, what could he do?

Anyway, she ran away and that left me, in my crappy old ship, on the way to face the left wing of the alien fleet. Real wing-and-a-prayer time. So, really bizarrely, I ended up as the only Federation ship in the sector. I was fighting alongside this little flotilla of souped-up civilian ships, manned by insurrectionists from the next system over, the Lauritol system. I recognized the names: they were Stratter Fenn's group. They told me they reckoned that the Federation were deliberately sending their own ships to  
stuff like mopping-up operations, etc, and leaving anyone else with an armed vessel - which was illegal, of course, so it was basically non-Feds and rebels, etc - to face the bad bits. I told them they were talking bollocks, they should see the state of the fleet. They told me I was a blinkered, moronic product of Alpha conditioning and privilege. Between swapping insults and nuking alien scum, we had a pretty good week. They were good lads, and they fought like the best. None of them had had FSA training, they said. I was impressed.

Now maybe it's my blinkered moronic conditioning etc, but I just found it hard to believe these lads were terrorists or whatever. We didn't have much time to get down to a political heart-to-heart, obviously, but they told me a bit about what was going on in their world and it was pretty weird to realise that people were really bothered about stuff like that. I mean, I've been in Space Command all my life, my name went down for my mum's old house at the FSA at birth, and I suppose I just thought anyone could do the same. There's opportunities for everyone if they want to take them up, and historically, the workers have always just gone to work and then gone home and taken drugs to get through their limited little lives, so what difference does it make if the administration give them the drugs instead, keep them happy? But - and these lads thought there really were workable alternatives to central government, as well. I'd never met anyone who genuinely believed that before, and it was pretty hard to just write them off as dangerous delusional Utopianists or whatever, people who could fight like that. They had their heads screwed on in a fight all right, and they saved my skin a couple of times. And if it was true, what they'd said about Space Command using the war as a way to liquidate armed civilian ships, then that really wasn't on at all.

So I was smoking this really rough cig, and I was having a little think about all this, and I'd had a couple of shorts which had gone to my head a bit, what with being troubled and everything. It was all a bit on the fucked-up side. Anyway, it was at this point that the barman came over to me.

"Excuse me, Commander -"

" _Space_ Commander," I said round my cigarette, pointing at my shoulder.

"Space Commander," he said a bit sarcastically. "You should have a look at the viz-screen."

I looked over to the screen in the corner, which was showing some sort of provincial-type newscast. In the last hour or so, apparently, Rephlar-12 had seceded from the Federation.

"So I'm afraid Federation credits are no longer legal tender, and you are no longer welcome in this bar."

"Fuck," I said, and had a little dig around in my emergency bag. Nothing. Bugger-all. No gold, no currency of any sort, not even cigarettes. Just the coke, and trading that was a real last resort. I was screwed.

"Buy me a drink for being a war hero?" I said hopefully. In reply, he took my one remaining drink and gave it to one of the men sitting at my table, who kept his eyes on mine all the time he was drinking it. Bastards.

"The Federation is finished," said the man who'd drunk my drink. "This is a free planet now."

"Well, that was a free drink, anyway," I said grumpily.

CHAPTER THREE

So then I had to go to this refugee camp. Without any cigarettes. It was in an old Federation military barracks, so it was quite homey. I changed into civvies from the emergency bag before I got to the camp, because I had the feeling that might be safest.

It was about the second evening after I'd got there, I think. I was sitting cross-legged on my blankets to stop people stealing them, in the middle of this big room which had probably been the mess hall but was just chaos now, families and their junk all over the place, kids crying and adults shouting at them, etc. I had my emergency bag tucked in between my legs and I was fiddling away with the comm stuff, trying to make something that would signal to any Federation ships in the area. If there were any. I was starting to believe Fenn and his boys about the whole setting-the-rebels-up thing. The bits I had were pretty useless, though. I was just about to give up and go and see if anyone had a particular crystal circuit they wanted to trade for some coke when I heard someone say Fenn's name over the noise, and I looked up.

Fenn turned out to be a big lad with dreadlocks and multiple facial piercings. Very Space Rat chic. He was limping along the wall behind me, but he turned and waved at whoever had shouted at him before going on.

"Fenn?" I said.

He turned and looked at me, a bit puzzled.

"Hi," I said, shoving all my stuff back in my bag and half-standing up. "I'm Holland."

"Holland?"

"Yeah, Holland. I only saved your arse from certain death at the hands of tentacled baddies, and you don't even remember my name in the morning. Fucking typical."

" _You_ saved _my_ arse?" he said, but he was smiling.

"Too right. How are the rest of the lads?"

"We all got out more or less all right. We had to crash-land here, but the _Mictlan_ 's salvageable."

"Yeah? Lucky bastards. I got told I'd get pick-up in thirty days, but that was just before this fucking rock seceded, so God knows what's going on now."

"Looks like you're going to get a chance to shed some of your Alpha blinkers and live in a real world."

"Lucky me."

"Actually, yes. You're on a free planet. You're still better off than most people born into colonized worlds."

"I don't know. I could do with some tranquillizers about now."

"Not funny, Holland," he said, limping off. "See you."

I gave him the finger behind his back, then got up, draped my blankets over my shoulder, picked up my bag and wandered off to see if anyone had this crystal I needed.

************

It turned out to be a bit of a pain in the arse, Fenn turning up, because now everyone knew I was the token Federation lass and people kept pulling me aside to tell me stories about what the Federation had done on Trepston-4 or Amos Beta or Zokasta, to their mum or their cousin or their girlfriend or themselves - I got shown more scars than I ever wanted to see - or whatever. I don't know what they wanted me to do about it. But it meant I met people, and in the end I found someone who wanted coke, got my crystal circuit and managed to cobble a comm transmitter together.

It was late at night, and I was working by really dim light when it was finally finished. It was pretty quiet, apart from people crying in their sleep and a gay couple fucking as quietly as they could under a blanket to my right. I guessed they were celebrating not being illegal any more, now that Federation law had been repealed or annulled or whatever it is you do when you secede. That was another thing I'd been informed about at length - I hadn't realized before how strictly the moral laws were enforced for civilians. I mean, there were so many queers at Space Command I'd kind  
of got used to it, apart from crap jokes, mostly about Servalan. I'd assumed it was the same for everyone - as long as you were relatively discreet no-one gave a fuck. Apparently not.

To be honest, I was getting a bit sick of realizing all these things. That's partly why I was going for this comm transmitter the way I was. I didn't even know any more if I wanted to go back to Space Command - although I was also getting a bit sick of refugee food being doled out to me - but I needed something to work on and this was a challenge.

I clicked the last circuit into place and started fiddling, trying to get it to work. I tried every which way and in the end it filtered even into my slow, tired mind. Central Control must be down.

So it was true. The Federation was over. No more Space Command to get back to, even if I could. I carried on working in a daze, bouncing the transmission off all the sub-stations I could remember, without thinking about it. I was thinking about what I could do now.

Then I stuffed it back into my emergency bag, put my blankets over me, picked up my bag and went off to find Fenn.

He was awake. He was always awake. I don't think I ever saw Fenn sleep. He was in one of the barracks rooms, one with real beds, which he and his rebel friends had basically taken over - they ran half the camp, it was mad, the amount of respect they had. He was sitting in a corner talking to a tallish, well-built, unshaven guy with curly hair who I hadn't seen at the camp before, though his face was familiar from somewhere.

"Fenn," I said.

"Holland," he said warily. "What do you want?"

"Actually, I came to ask a favour."

"You look like shit," he said suddenly, tipping my face sideways so the light hit it. I blinked. "Are you all right? What do you need? Medication?" I said he ran the camp. He could get anything.

"I want to come with you. To Lauritol."

He took a swig out of a flask and passed it to me, to cover the fact he wasn't saying anything. I drank and passed it on to the other man.

"You keep saying the Federation's finished. You're right. Central Control has gone down -"

"I know," he said.

"How do you know? I didn't know."

"Someone told me," he said, glancing at his friend so quickly I could only just tell he'd done it.

"The man with the news, eh?" I said to the friend. He made a self-deprecating face.

"Can I come with you?" I asked again.

"I'll need to discuss it." Fenn glanced at his friend again.

"Ooh," I said, "someone's arrived who can pull rank on the glorious Fenn, eh? You must really be someone."

"My name is Roj Blake," he said, at which point I worked out where I'd seen his face before.

"Careful," said Fenn at the same time. His eyes were intense on Blake's face. "She's Space Command. High up."

"That hardly seems to matter now," said Blake. "Why do you want to come with us?"

There was something about him. Everything I knew about him was running through my head noisily, all at once - the time the _Liberator_ blasted the doughnut and a few of my friends had died, the way the _Liberator_ had stood alone against the alien fleet until we'd arrived, the child abuse, the (cough) moral deviancy - but, I don't know, it was weird. I don't know whether what I knew about him was deepening him in some way, or whether his presence was dissolving all the legends and the rumours and the facts. Or it might have been his voice - he could have filled an auditorium, no amplification, but he wasn't loud or anything. He just seemed more important than anyone else there. I felt very tired and a bit crap.

"Fenn and his bunch are the only people I know now. They're good lads. There's nothing for me here. And we fight well together."

I got a smile off Fenn for that.

"A mercenary," said Blake thoughtfully. He was looking at me. I started to wonder whether he fancied me.

"I'm a soldier. But I don't have an army any more. Or a cause."

"Hmmm," he said, and paused for a bit, biting a fingernail. "If you were to come with us - if we were to arm you - how could we be sure we could trust you? A soldier without a cause is hardly the most reliable of revolutionaries."

"I'm not _Servalan_ , you know. I'm not _obsessed_. I didn't join the military to hunt down any poor sod who's allergic to suppressants."

Blake laughed and looked at Fenn. I started to wonder whether he fancied _Fenn_ , then thought it must just be his way.

"She could be very useful to us," he said.

"We should discuss it with the others," Fenn said again.

"Of course," said Blake, and turned back to me cheerfully. "We'll take a vote on it tomorrow, Holland. We'll be leaving for the Lauritol system fairly shortly."

Fenn did a thing with his mouth that was half smile and half grimace and said, a bit, grumpily, "In that case we should get started on your political education."

After a quick rummage in his footlocker (he got a footlocker, I didn't. Everything was back-asswards in this camp) he handed me a couple of discs and a minireader. "Foucault," he said, "Benjamin, Mithotl, Althusser, Prander, Baudrillard, Avalon, Lyotard, Moy."

"I'm a soldier, not an academic," I said. "Can't you just tell me some old war stories?"

"There'll be time for that later," said Blake, patting me on the arm, and he sent me off to bed.

*********

They voted me in, with conditions, among them that I had to read these bloody discs. I was sat on my blankets trying to get my head round them - I'd never seen anything so weird. "Power must be understood in the first instance as the multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they operate and which constitute their own organization." Is that supposed to mean _anything at all_? I was feeling much better generally, though, now that I had somewhere I was going and some people I was going with. I don't like being on my own much, I've never been used to it. But I was pretty easily distracted, and suddenly I found I'd been half-listening to a conversation somewhere a few metres over in the general chaos - you know, when you don't realize you've heard something until after it's over. It sounded really like Fenn, and it sounded like he was saying "Well, you've got to shag Blake, haven't you? Even just to say you've done it." I was just trying to work out who the lass was he was talking to who'd been shagging Blake, or if the noxious rumours were all true and Blake really was with Blake, so to speak, and even so - _Fenn_? when the official blokey on the gates came over. He was all right. I didn't know his name, but he generally left us alone and that was just fine by us.

"Space Commander Holland?"

"Yes?" I said before I thought, and then I said, "What?"

"You're to go to the launch area in Luaka. A shuttle is waiting there to take you up to the _Crippen_ , a Chengan ship, which is to take you back to your command. Apparently they've been receiving a call signal from these co-ordinates."

Fuck. I'd completely forgotten about the transmitter I'd rigged.

"Rendezvous is in one hour," he went on. "You'll have to leave immediately."

"Bugger. Can't I just -"

"No, you can't," he said shortly. He looked pissed off. "Come with me now, please."

I didn't see Fenn or any of his lot on the way out. I was being almost _dragged_ by this guy. Just before he put me on the transport to Luaka, still under supervision, I said to him: "Tell them, please, tell Blake and the others, I didn't betray them. The signal was automated. Tell them."

"I'll tell them you said so," he said and closed the door on me. I don't know if he believed me. I don't know if he told them or not. I found out later, when I was in touch with the _Liberator_ , that they'd lost touch with Blake soon after that: the last they'd heard he was on his way to Epheron, which is in the Lauritol system, but he never made it there. So I guess he didn't think it was worth the risk.

So there I was, in a shuttle, supervised by two Rephlar-12 government officials who were completely silent and grim and looked _very_ pissed off with me, unsurprisingly I suppose, and I was completely confused. I'd been changing sides so often lately my head was spinning. Still, maybe it would be a chance to get some things changed. I wondered how many of the top level officers at Space Command had survived. Probably most of them, but even so, the Federation was going to be in serious trouble, and if only there were a few reasonable ones around, or at least people I could bully, what with my rank and my new status as a war hero, maybe we could start changing things. The politicians tended to listen to us, seeing as how we had all the weapons and everything. It might actually be a really good opportunity to reorganize the way the Federation ruled, get rid of some of the drugs and the moral laws etc... I started thinking about all my old friends, wondering which of them would be susceptible to a bit of insurrectionist propaganda. So I was actually quite excited when we docked  
with the *Crippen* and the two officials escorted me into the reception bay.

Then I looked up and saw Servalan.

"Space Commander," she said with her warmest smile. The temperature dropped perceptibly. "What good fortune for us that you have survived." She turned to the two officials. "And thank you, Ministers, for acting as escorts. I trust the matters that we spoke of are being dealt with."

"Indeed they are, Madam."

"Good. You may return to your duties, which I am sure are pressing." She turned away from them slightly and they legged it back into the shuttle, quick as you like.

"Hello, Supreme Commander," I said.

She did that _really annoying_ smile she does, the one where she grins like a nutter but drops her eyelashes and turns her head half-aside, presumably so you don't notice how much gum she's showing. "The correct form of address is now Madam President," she said, "but we're old friends - Holland. I think we can do away with the formalities, don't you?"

Servalan was fucking President. Oh bollocks.

"Thank you, Servalan. And may I say how grateful I am to you for picking me up in person."

"Our ship was in this sector," she said a bit dismissively, "and we were the first to register your code signal. Please - come through to the rest area."

I followed her through, watching her hips sway. She was wearing some sort of long white thing with beading on it - though I have to say if I had an arse like that I wouldn't wear white - and how she walked in those heels was beyond me. She was like the uber-girl. I wondered whether she'd worn that outfit in the battle.

Anyway, we sat down on two tiny little sofas in a cramped rest area, and a lass in a green uniform brought us drinks - brandy for me, some sort of fizzy clear thing for her, probably water. I lit up a tab and Servalan winced delicately.

"Increase ventilation thirty per cent," she said to the girl, who nodded and cleared out. It got a bit breezy but I persevered. I reckoned I deserved it. Anyway, I was in my snug camp-knit jumper (Fenn had got it for me), which was incredibly ugly and a bit grubby by now, but you couldn't fault it for toastiness, so I was bound to be warmer than the Sleeveless Wonder.

"How did you find your stay on Rephlar-12?"

I shrugged. "I've been more comfortable."

"I don't doubt it. I wonder, though - Rumours have reached us that since the planet's attempt to secede from the Federation -"

"Attempt?" I asked quickly.

She did that smile again, and I started counting flight-hours in my head to try and work out how long I was going to be stuck on this ship with her. "Of course. We are taking the view that it was an aberration caused by the regrettable, but inevitable, lack of order during the war, when almost all military officials had to be posted on active duty. However, rumours have reached us that due to this - lapse, Rephlar-12 became an asylum for various undesirable elements in the area. Possibly including some of Blake's people, or Stratter Fenn's group. I was hoping you could give us some information."

For fuck's sake. The war had been over for what, like a week or something, she was like the Queen of the Universe, and she was already back on the old Blake thing.

I took a quick sip of brandy and said calmly: "I don't think there was anything you need devote your personal attention to, Servalan." (She liked that.) "I was pretty high on the camp hierarchy, of course, but I didn't get to know of anyone who'd been involved in anything more criminal than minor-league smuggling, maybe a bit of gun-running. It certainly didn't seem to be an organized centre or anything."

"I see," she said, in a tone which would probably have disconcerted most people, but I'd had enough contact with her to know that she did it on purpose whether or not she knew you were lying, and I wasn't too bothered. I took another drag on my cigarette and drank some more brandy, which was exceptionally nice. There was quite a big part of me just thinking about how fucking nice it was to be back in civilization again. I wondered whether any of the crew had any decent cigarettes. Or even a cigar. A cigar would be just the thing. I leaned back, sprawling a bit in this lovely soft comfy seat. Servalan sat a little straighter and sipped her water. She really didn't like me much. I suddenly really wanted to put my feet on the table and fart loudly.

"You'll be pleased to hear that Space Commander Rexel also survived the war," she said.

I was shocked to realize I hadn't really been sparing Deelan a thought over the last few weeks. Except when I was horny, and even then not for long, to be fair. Shit. I really am a shallow bitch sometimes.

"I am pleased," I said. "What about the others? Only I've been hearing some pretty extreme rumours, and - I don't suppose you saw the state of it on Bytor, did you? I had to refit there and it was a complete bastard of a mess."

She ignored the swearword, which I regretted as soon as it was out of my mouth. Herself's not much for swearing like a trooper, probably because she never was one.

"As far as I have been able to determine, losses among the higher ranks were gratifyingly low," was what she said. "The fleet is severely - compromised, of course, but we are confident of being able to rebuild. However, it is more important than ever that we keep an eye on terrorist agitation at this stage of - temporary vulnerability."

"Of course," I said, and finished my brandy.

She leaned in towards me and put a hand on my knee. Oo-er, I thought.

"Are you quite sure there was nothing of the sort at the camp on Rephlar-12?" She was looking at me very intently, and to be completely honest, Servalan is pretty fucking scary, and all in all I was feeling almost as troubled as I had in that bar. I wished I had more brandy to drink to cover the moment. I lit another cigarette instead and took a deep breath, trying to look thoughtful, then said: "As sure as I can be, Servalan. There wasn't anything open, and I didn't hear anyone mention Blake or Fenn or Avalon, etcetera. But, you know, it's been a fairly chaotic few weeks and I probably haven't, I don't know, processed all the information yet. Something might come to mind."

She looked at me for an uncomfortable couple of seconds, to see if I was covering anything up, then obviously decided I was too straight-down-the-line and took her hand off my knee.

"Of course, you must be tired," she said. "I'll ask the crew to show you to your cabin. Perhaps you could put a report in writing for me when you're more rested." She stood up and put her empty glass down. Dismissed.

CHAPTER FOUR

After we got back to Earth (where Servalan was going to take up residence) I got shuttled over to the doughnut. Deelan and a bunch of the lads were waiting for me when I got out of the docking bay. It was sweet. They jumped up and down when they saw me and shouted "Hooray!" and stuff. We went off to the bar and got rat-arsed and told each other lies about how many ships we'd killed in the war and how badly we'd been hurt, etc. I put a beermat over one eye and balanced a peanut on my finger and shouted "Blake! Blake!" a few times - my celebrated Travis impression. It felt weird now that I'd actually met Blake, though, which I almost said, what with being pissed off my head for the first time in about a fucking month. Luckily, someone started telling me about how Travis had apparently actually started the war, which was the weirdest story I'd heard yet, and I shut up. I mean, even by his standards, that was a bit extreme. Anyway, then we got onto Servalan being President, and that kept us going for an hour or so. To summarize, no-one was happy about it, seeing as how she's a mad bitch and everything.

Then Deelan and I went back to his quarters and had athletic, combative sex for ages. It was great, though I was too pissed to worry about how sore I was going to be when I woke up, which I was. I was out of practice. All my muscles were aching and I was rubbed raw into the bargain, so I woke Deelan up because I didn't see why he should just lie there sleeping with a smug look on his face, and we lay all warm and civilised in bed eating crescents and drinking coffee and it was fucking excellent. For about twenty minutes, whereupon Deelan announced he had to get up and swung himself out of bed to get dressed.

"Why?" I said.

"Got to get to work, sweetheart."

"Don't call me that," I said automatically. "Can't you take the day off? Say your fiancée's just returned from missingness-presumed-deadness at the hands of tentacled aliens from another galaxy? Which I have. By the way."

He came back over to the bed, buttoning his shirt up, and kissed me on the top of my head. I punched him (gently) in the arm.

"Ow," he said patiently. "I'd forgotten your sweet ways, Siv. Give me a break, will you? It's mad at the moment, darlin. We're all working flat out. Half the civilised worlds are in revolt, there's still a load of recon and pickups waiting from the war, the Federation's weaker than it has been in centuries and it can't afford to show it. I only just managed to argue my way off a posting to be here to meet you at all."

"So the Federation really is in trouble, is it?"

He stared at me. "We're fighting for our own arses this time, Siv. Where have you been?"

"Rephlar-12," I said. "They said - " but I stopped myself. "I mean, Herself said we were fine."

"Yeah, well, Herself's a mad bitch, remember? Plus she's a politician now. Plus she's Queen of the Sky, so of course everything's fucking fine according to her. I'm telling you, it's a serious fucking calamity out there. It's time to crush and maim like we've never crushed and maimed before. And with the fleet at 20% and manpower down by - fuck knows. You'd better enjoy your day off. It's going to be a long time before you get another one."

I thought about this for a bit, and wondered whether I could get posted to the Lauritol system, and whether it would be a good idea if I could, and all sorts of things. What I said was, "Maybe she's going about it the wrong way."

"What?"

"Maybe now that we're, you know, in trouble, maybe now would be a good time to rethink some stuff. Give the colonized worlds a bit more independence or whatever..." I looked at his face and added "You know, just to settle things down at the moment. It would be good propaganda or whatever."

He sat on the edge of the bed to put his boots on and gave me a funny look. "What are you on about, Space Commander Siv, terror of the known sky and scourge of terrorists the galaxy over? Have you gone soft on me?" He laughed at himself and went out, giving me another kiss on the head on the way out. I let him do it this time. I was thinking I was going to have to be very careful. The thought of how complicated everything was going to be gave me a headache. I went back to sleep.

********

It turned out Deelan was right. It was my last day off for a long time. Of course I was working even harder than everybody knew, because I was busy designing and building a little communications computer which I could hide inside my personal user point so I could talk to Blake and Fenn on Rephlar-12, and hopefully to the _Mictlan_ and the _Liberator_ as well. I never raised the *Mictlan*, and by the time I got through to Rephlar-12 Blake and Fenn had left, but the day I got through to the _Liberator_ was one of the most exciting moments of my life. I felt like a teenager hacking into a pop star's private computer line. It was also the day of the medals ceremony and the big banquet President S was giving to commemorate our amazing achievements in the war.

So anyway, I went up and got my medal off Servalan and one of the new Admirals, a guy called Biados, and I just felt so fucking proud. I was looking smart as could be in dress blacks and the highest, shiniest boots in the galaxy, and there was this music, and everyone was all lined up and stood at attention, and anyway the upshot was that Deelan caught me booing in the corridor afterwards, which was extremely embarrassing except that he didn't dare tease me too much because I could see he wasn't far off having a little weep himself. Which is only slightly less out of character for Dee than it is for me.

It was so fucking weird. I was completely broken down with pride and love for all my fucking brothers and sisters and just the glamour of it all, etc - and anyway, it was an intergalactic war, it was something we'd done right for once, surely I was allowed to be proud of it? It was like how I sometimes felt coming back from combat, the closest thing I knew of that was really like what they say being in love is like. But at the same time my head was crunching round the fact that I'd actually contacted the _Liberator_ that day and I was proud of that too but I knew all my bro's and sisses would just totally revile me forever if they knew. I was all full up of this stuff. I tell you, being a spy's not as much fun as they make out.

Anyway, like I was saying, Dee couldn't take the piss out of me too much because he was all choked himself, so we just cleared our throats at each other a lot and he gave me a cuddle and we went off to get changed for the banquet.

**********

The banquet. Well, what can I say? It wasn't in uniform, which was already a major hassle for me. Sometimes I wonder if the only reason I joined the Army was so I wouldn't have to decide on what to wear to formal functions. Or anything else, come to think of it. (That's another thing I completely don't understand about Servalan.) This time, though, I'd got a couple of the lasses together and we'd made a pact we'd all wear trousers. When Herself gives a party, it's generally expected that everyone wears silly frocks like hers. But we reckoned if we all stuck together it would be okay. I mean, who the fuck wears skirts in this day and age - in this fucking _century_? Thania used to, of course, but she had major Servalan crush (recognized ailment in Space Command, usually wears off eventually. Mine did) and since Servalan never noticed her - Herself tends not to shag about in the ranks, anyway - she was making up for it by basically trying to be her. There's still something in the rules about how lasses can wear skirts as uniform once they hit officer grade, which I find amazingly bizarre and antiquated, but there you go, they suited her.

So I was looking sexy as fuck in my trouser suit, and I'd tried my best with my hair, which I was trying to grow as a low-noticeability marker of rebellion (basically, what Servalan does is the fashion, everything else is mildly remarkable). I was even wearing heels, which were low but which I could hardly walk in. You've got to admire Herself for some things. And Dee was looking beyond gorgeous in his first-best old-fashioned leather evening suit. Honestly, I could hardly look at him without getting the major horn. I had to snog him quite severely before we set off, and we were nearly late. By the time we got there everybody else had arrived. They were milling about in the formal officers' reception room drinking wine and chatting. I abandoned Deelan - there was a thing where you weren't supposed to sit next to your shagging partner anyway, unless Servalan had smuggled one of her little bits in. You could always tell because they sat next to her, looking a bit intimidated, and didn't talk to anyone much. I think she got off on the blatantness of it.

Anyway, I got myself a glass of wine and went off to chat to some of the lasses, who were stood about in the corner comparing medals and scars and boyfriends, etc. We're not a very high-flown lot, my friends.

"Hello, Holland," said Vannon, who was my particular friend. She'd served under me during my first command, but was well set to catch up with me in rank any year now.

"Hello, you old slapper," I said amiably, looking at her Star of Valour. "Nice brooch you've got there."

"Same to you," she said. "Did you steal yours off a real soldier?"

"Less of your lip. At least I didn't go down on Servalan for it."

"Yeah, only because she ran a fucking mile at the sight of you, you dirty bitch. Pick up any nice diseases from the pirates? Or was it just the lice?"

"I heard Pharok" (that's her husband) "had his dick shot off at Torban." I paused for a second. "And no-one noticed."

"Did you hear that from Rexel? Only I hear his arse is so slack from going with the troopers he wouldn't feel it if you shoved your arm up there."

Like I said, not a very high-flown lot. Actually we were all still a bit over-emotional and full of pride in each other. Looking round, I could see the lads all touching each other a bit more than usual - long handshakes with both hands, slaps on the arm, that sort of thing. You know what lads are like.

"Do you want to join in the sweepstake?" said another lass, Petrel.

"What sweepstake?"

"We're all betting on what the President's going to wear. Winner gets bought a drink by everyone after."

"Where are we going after?"

"Dancing," said everyone all at once.

"Okay," I said, pretending to think. "Could it be.... a white dress?"

Everyone groaned.

"Oh for fuck's sake, all right. White sleeveless dress with beading over the bust, silver strappy sandals, pearl jewellery."

Petrel wrote it down in her little book, tucked it back into her inside breast pocket - she was looking very dashing in a very boyish evening jacket - and filched us all another couple of glasses of wine each off an incredibly camp bloke going round with trays.

"Servalan goes to the gynaecologist, right," said Vannon, "and the doctor's examining her, right, and the doctor says, 'Fuck me, it's immaculate in here! What do you do to keep yourself so hygienic?' So Servalan says, 'I have a woman in twice a week'."

We laughed, looked round a bit nervously to see who was in earshot, and stopped laughing, because just then the main double doors at the far end of the room opened and there was Servalan at the top of a short flight of stairs. She stood still there just long enough to make sure everyone saw her and stopped talking, then made her way into the throng, took the arm of a short lass who'd been standing on her own, looking a bit sulky, and led her off into the dining room. She'd completely fooled us all by wearing one of the maddest things I'd ever seen her in - I mean, yeah, it was nominally a white dress, but it had this kind of half-cape thing over the shoulders. With feathers. And quite a short skirt, with white stockings and pointy, shiny white ankle boots. Thania would have been wetting herself, the old perv. I didn't want to think about Thania.

We all followed and clustered round the seating plan and filed through bumpily to sit where we'd been put. I was on one side of Servalan for the first course - the short lass was on the other side, and fixed to stay there for the whole evening - which was quite good because I was only slightly warm and buzzy from the wine so far and I didn't trust my big mouth round her later in the meal.

Servalan wasn't seated yet - she was stood at the entrance smiling at people. The smile on her mouth was made-to-order charming, but there was a genuine ha-ha-I'm-President gleam in her eyes. So I could sit down and looked at the new girlfriend curiously - she was a poky little thing, a far cry from the last one I could remember, who'd been a statuesque blonde with a haughty look.

"Hello," I said. "I'm Siv Holland."

"Uria," she said quietly. She had a strange, deep voice. It was quite attractive.

"I don't think I've seen you around. Are you Space Command?"

"No. I'm here at the invitation of the President."

"Very nice too," I said at random. Obviously, I was dying to know what it could be like to _go out_ with _Servalan_ \- you know, whether she said "That was gratifyingly effective" in bed, how the fuck long it took her to get dressed and painted on a morning, etc - but this lass was on her guard and I couldn't think of anything I could ask that would sound even slightly innocent, so I gave up and just looked round at the room. It was pretty impressive - one great big long table, with room for three people sat next to each other at the short ends and about fifty down each side. Candles in shiny metal holders, flowers, genuine cloth on the genuine wood, etc. All very C-19 chic.

It wasn't too long before Servalan came and took her seat, anyway. We all stood up for her, and she smiled at us all - fuck me, but she was loving this - and we all sat down again, and a load of incredibly camp waiter types started coming round with the food. The first course was an avocado-ey thing. It was absolutely gorgeous, but I couldn't really do it justice because I was having to talk to the President, and of course all I could think of was the fact that I'd been speaking to the crew of the _Liberator_ from my fucking office on her fucking doughnut. I kept thinking the whole thing was going to turn into one of those stupid comedies they used to do, you know, like I would be saying "Please pass the Blake" or whatever. The thing with Servalan is she's so fucking weird, she really is a law unto herself, and I find that pretty hard to deal  
with sometimes. You never know where you are with her, except it's probably not where you thought you were.

For instance. The first thing she did when she sat down - after smiling quickly at the girlfriend, who sort of _shone_ , but in a sullen kind of way, in response - was say to me: "Are you glad to be home, Holland?" Very matey. Or possibly a cunning trap. You see?

"Oh, absolutely, Madam," at which she laid her hand (all fingernails. I worried about that girlfriend, sore as I was. Maybe Servalan only went with stone butches?) on my sleeve and said throatily: "Servalan. Please." I sort of nodded, in an attempt to be gracious, but it's not something I'm good at.

"Um. Yes, it's marvellous to be back in the thick of things. And the ceremony today was so moving."

"I too found it moving, and pleasing, to see that I am leaving the organization in the best possible hands. Of course we in the Administration are very much aware of how much we owe to Space Command. And how we shall continue to be in your debt in the trying times ahead."

I wondered whether she was trying out bits of her speech on me. If she knew me at all she knew I'd be far too wankered by the end of the meal to remember what she'd said.

"Thank you, Servalan. That means a lot."

Finally, she started on her avocado and I could too, although that was probably stupid because of course she'd finished her dainty forkful while my mouth was still full and I was at a bit of a disadvantage when she started talking again.

"It must be good to be reunited with Space Commander Rexel, also. You do make a very handsome couple. May I ask when you intend to be married?"

As if I _gave_ a fuck. I wasn't the one with the thing about white dresses. I swallowed my mouthful hurriedly, wondering whether she was just taking the piss because she knew I couldn't _mention_ the fact that she just really blatantly had her girlfriend sat next to her.

"Oh, I don't know. We haven't made any plans about it yet. Everything's just so off its head at the moment, as well, it hasn't seemed that important. You know. We're both pretty much married already, to Space Command, so... I don't know."

"I quite understand," she said. "Devotion like yours is noted, I assure you, but I agree it leaves us women with little time for the more - traditional pleasures."

Fuck me, but that Servalan was a cheeky bitch. I didn't dare look at Uria, but I'm sure I saw her grinning for a flash of a second, out of the corner of my eye. I was starting to feel quite kindly disposed towards her, actually.

"Maybe sometime next year, if we get the leave we're due. I mean, if things have calmed down."

"Which we certainly hope they will," she said a bit coldly.

"Naturally," I said.

"Of course, you at Space Command will be having perhaps more of a free hand now. There will be no more pressure from within the Administration to make concessions to terrorist elements."

I ate some more avocado and swore copiously in my head. It was all just coming too fast. Servalan was just switching direction every two seconds.

"But let us not discuss policy," she went on. "This is hardly the time or the place, is it? This is the moment to congratulate you on all you have achieved so far." I got another smile, and felt my brain itching madly under it.

I swear, I couldn't think of anything to say that wasn't disgustingly obsequious, so I said: "Under your leadership, Servalan. But thank you," and felt annoyed with myself. She smirked at me, which was even more annoying, and I felt increasing urges to stand on the table and shriek "I'm with Blake!" Though not in _that_ sense, obviously.

Thank fuck, though, the sorbet arrived at that point and she switched her attention to Uria, so I chatted to Admiral Komptor on my other side. He was there because he'd been awarded a Tarial Orb for, as far as I could see, sitting on his arse on a safe planet refusing to help out people like the old Major on Bytor. Obviously I just wanted to eavesdrop on Herself and her bit, but he kept me talking about tactics and shit and I only caught a couple of isolated words. Which could have meant anything. I swear she was playing footsie with the girlfriend under the table, though, the lecherous old dyke.

And then we all got to move round for a few more courses, including an absolutely to-die-for quail in a sort of bitter chocolate-and-herby sauce, and then again, and I ended up, much to my relief, sat next to Deelan for dessert. We were out of Servalan's earshot, again much to my relief, but I swear she winked at me and raised her glass when she saw who I was sitting next to.

Obviously, I was pissed by this point, just nicely about half-way to vomiting and passing out. Okay, maybe two-thirds. Deelan was coming along nicely, too. He put his hand on my thigh when I sat down, and I wriggled it off, and he put it back on. It was sweet.

"Have you seen the state of the President's new bit?"

"I quite fancy her, actually," I said. He wriggled his fingers on my thigh.

"You'll have to tell me all about that. Later."

"Oh, fuck off, you old perv."

"How was Herself?"

I rolled my eyes. "She just sat there going 'Look at me, I'm President, and I _dare_ you to call me a lesbian.' Pathetic. Who've you been talking to?"

"Broz. He reckons he knows where Blake is."

"Really?" I said, not wanting at all to think about that. "Where?"

"Mykonos-Alpha," he said and burst out laughing. It was an old joke, Mykonos-Alpha being one of the nearest non-Federation worlds without moral laws.

I suddenly thought Deelan was a bit disgusting. I ate my pudding, and said, "It's been too fucking long since I had any chocolate."

Then there was port and speeches. We all sat there, bloated and waiting eagerly for the port to make its way round, and listening to the new Supreme Commander going on about how fantastic everything was now that Servalan was in charge. At least, I assume that's what he was going on about. I wasn't actually listening. I was watching the decanter make its maddeningly slow rounds, enjoying Deelan's half-hearted attempts to feel me up under the table, and thinking about something Fenn had said to me, about how disgusting it was that the Federation imposed this upper-class British nineteenth-century way of life on the galaxy, as a universal aspiration which only the upper echelons had the money to meet. Or something. He said it was racist and colonial and Terracentric and ahistorical and a grotesque anachronism. I was idly wondering whether it was essential to talk like a complete twat to have any credibility as a revolutionary, when the port thankfully reached me and we all had to drink to Servalan, who was about to make her own speech. I watched her dreamily as she stood up.

What happened next - I still don't know whether she was playing with my head, whether she knew even then.

"Ladies and gentlemen," she said, "these are interesting times, and I myself feel that to be a blessing rather than a curse." She took a sip of water.

"All of us in this room have come through a very great thing. We have all fought for the future of the human race. We, Space Command, the strength of the Federation, have pitted that strength against the ultimate threat - and won. I know you will all have your own memories of this combat, and..."

Well, and so on and so forth. But the room was very quiet, and I was trying hard to remember that Servalan didn't have a fucking clue what she was talking about, but it wasn't working. I was thinking about what I'd gone through, and I looked at everyone's serious faces, trying to imagine what they were remembering.

Next time I tuned in she'd got back to the insurrectionists, of course. The enemy within. Which was me. I tried not to listen, but - I don't know. It was fucked up.

"As you all know," she was saying, "there are those who wish to take advantage of our fallen friends, to take the blood they spilt in the service of a freely united human race, powerful and able to defend itself against invasion, and pervert it. They want to use the loss we have all suffered to bring down the very institutions which allowed us to survive, if not intact, then at least not on our knees. But the war must go on as long as the enemy continues to destroy what we have all given so much to build up and to protect."

She took another sip of water.

"I have seen you in battle. I know what you are capable of, and I know you will not cease to give your all in a worthy cause. All of you are here because we recognize your extraordinary courage and endurance. There is just one more individual acknowledgement I wish to make tonight before we finish. A young woman who has only just arrived at Space Command, having taken months to travel from the final battle over Sarran, where she crash-landed after flying solo from Bytor and fighting - again as the solo crew member - for more than forty-eight hours without rest. She destroyed more than a dozen alien craft in that time and, by standing her ground, ensured that the battle could be won. In recognition of her extraordinary experiences, she has been given the rank of Major and is to be awarded the Galaxy Orb. Major Garson, please come in."

Oh my fuck. Trooper Garson. Lann. She was my baby - in one of the first divisions I'd ever commanded. She was an amazing woman and I loved her and I'd thought she was dead and I was crying.

She came in. She was really banged up - it looked like she really had only got in recently, she was still bandaged and her face was bruised.

"Space Commander Holland," said Servalan, "as Garson's Commanding Officer, please come up to make the award."

I could hardly see as I went up to the front and put the ribbon round Lann's neck. She was so little and brave. I couldn't believe what she'd done. She was crying a bit too and she looked up at me with - oh fuck, an expression I'd never thought I'd see on anyone's face meant for me. I told you, this is the closest there is to what they say being in love is like. I couldn't resist giving her a hug before I scuttled back to my seat and we all drank to Lann, then to Servalan. I was just in complete floods by this point. Deelan was so embarrassed. He didn't know what to do with himself. I think he would have pretended he wasn't with me if there was the slightest chance of that being plausible.

I was still in a state by the time we got across to the officers' mess, where there was dancing and flashing lights etc. My head was just absolutely in bits. Vannon took one look at me and hauled me off to the women's loos to do some coke, which she'd got off Petrel, apparently, whose new "friend" was in the right division for drugs.

"Are you all right?" she said cautiously while I was doing my lines off the little shelf they thoughtfully put in there for you.

I finished my fourth line, handed her the straw, and sniffed a couple of times with the back of my hand to my nose, in the classic manner. It hit almost straightaway and it was quality fucking merchandise.

"I am now," I said.

I really shouldn't do coke when I'm pissed on alk already. This is a lesson life has taught me many times, but I'm always ready to learn it again. The thing is, when I'm pissed, I'm talkative, but I'm lazy. When I'm on coke I'm the king of the fucking galaxy and no fucker is going to shut me up.

Which, I would hazard a guess, is why next time I had a lucid moment I was drenched to the skin in sweat and a bottle of water someone - probably me - had poured over me, so that my hair was sticking to my face, I'd done my ankle in in those bloody heels, all my dancing muscles were aching and I was lying forward over a little table, pouring alk into my mouth from a bottle and staring at Deelan, Vannon and Pharok, while talking at about five hundred words a minute. The alarming thing is what I suddenly heard myself saying:

"It's just not fucking _true_ , though, it's all just fucking _words_. She can't _do_ that. It's fucking not on. It's her that's just using us, you know, and it makes me sick. It's all just such fucking shit. I - What we all did, it wasn't for the greater glory of fucking Servalan, it was because it was a fucking _war_ , you know? And what about everyone else who fought, you know? What about the fucking _Liberator_? We wouldn't even _be_ here to get our medals if..." At which point I pulled my medal off, threw it on the floor, stamped on it, said: "She's just fucked it all up. Everything I was - Everything I did. Everything I was proud of." And burst into tears. Again.

I think I was a bit overwrought.

"What the fuck did you give her?" said Pharok to Vannon.

"She's been seriously fucking weird since she got back," said Deelan, picking me up. "Come on, Siv, sweetheart, we're going to get you into bed."

"Fuck off," I said. "Where's my medal? What have you done with it?"

"It's on the floor, sweetheart. Here you go. Come on now."

************

It was the next day that I set up the emergency self-destruct messaging function on the hermit drive, and it was a month later that I used it.


	2. Part 2

CHAPTER ONE

After I was arrested and before anything happened, there was paperwork, more or less. As per usual. Fucking bureaucracy. I had to be stripped of my rank temporarily, seeing as I outranked all the people who would be questioning me etc, and could theoretically have ordered them to leave me alone. That didn't take long, but it was pretty fucking horrible. Only the Admirals - and Herself, obviously, but she didn't bother to show - had the authority to do it. I was standing in this big, shiny room, the tribunal room where court-martials took place - I'd only been in there a couple of  
times before.

I had to stand at attention while it was going on, in the middle of the floor, three feet away from the high bench the four of them were sitting behind. Their faces were scary, closed off from me. I'd been at a banquet with them all a month before, getting extremely pissed and laughing and stuffing our faces with fashionable twentieth-century-style food; I'd been on active service under them years ago, before they turned into fat desk-job bastards, and there they were with robot faces taking my rank away.  
It wasn't human. The whole thing was this bizarre, antique ceremonial. They had the court guard physically take the flashes off my uniform and everything. I felt horrible.

That was first. Then I was put in a holding room with a couple of Intelligence types who explained the situation. I wasn't entitled to a lawyer, apparently, until just before the trial, after the questioning. That was routine, because of the nature of the charges, but it pissed me off. No rank, no lawyer. It was starting to get through to me just how  
fucked I was. Also, my lawyer, Deven, was a friend of mine, and I really wanted to see someone and talk to them, someone who knew me and wasn't in robot mode. That didn't happen, though. Or it did, sort of, later on.

Then they cut my hair and took me off-doughnut, to a colony in Sector Four, to an Intelligence unit.

************

A while later, I was lying on a bunk. I was very cold. Tears were coming out of my eyes - I knew because every now and then I put my finger up to my face to feel if they were still coming out. The salty water stung a bit. I was trying to do my old relaxation exercises, but my head was all weird, sort of empty and full at the same time. I couldn't keep a train of thought up for more than a couple of seconds, but I couldn't shut my brain up either, and it wasn't saying anything interesting. It was a bit shit,  
really.

I was aware after a while that there was a commotion going on outside, but I didn't seem to be interested in that either. Except then my door opened and my fucking heart started going a mile a minute and I felt my teeth going into my lip and all my muscles tensing up again. I started sitting up to get off the bed and go off drably with the guard, but when I looked up it wasn't a guard. It was a tall bloke with curly hair and a black girl showing a lot of cleavage. Their faces looked alive in a way I hadn't seen  
anyone look for ages. The girl was looking out of the door, pointing a really funny-looking gun out of it, for some reason. The man was holstering a similar weapon. I looked at them, without saying anything. It didn't make any sense. It was like looking at a picture from some weird colony, of alien animals or something.

"Siv Holland?" the man said. He was grinning. His voice was posh.

"Space Commander Holland, Siv, deprived of rank for the duration of enquiries into dissident activity, number 273," I heard myself say.

"Put this on. Quickly - we haven't much time." He threw me a plastic bracelet.

"You've broken into a high-security Intelligence unit to bring me jewellery," I said, but I put it on, clumsily. My head was clearing a bit. "Cheap jewellery."

"Hardly cheap," said the girl without looking round. Her voice was nice, it sounded like she was almost laughing. "Ready, Tarrant?"

"Ready." He pressed a button on his bracelet and spoke into it: "Three to come up."

And then I was somewhere else entirely. It was the biggest room I'd been in since I left the doughnut. That was the first impression I got - space. It smelt different, too: cleaner, but just for the moment the space and the new smell just made me feel shapelessly tense. I made myself look properly. I was in a sort of alcove with the man and the girl who'd come into my cell, facing a little bank of instruments. A man was sitting behind it, short and slightly balding, with his hand on a row of switches. There  
was another man and another woman standing behind him, leaning against a wall. They looked like people I knew, but I knew they weren't.

The tall lad who'd brought me there turned to me and held out his hand. I took it.

"Welcome to the _Liberator_ ," he said, at which point my brain kicked in and I knew who I was looking at.

"Fuck _me_ ," I said.

The dark man pushed himself sleazily off the wall. I didn't like the way he was looking at me. "My name is Avon," he said. "This is Vila, Cally, Dayna and Tarrant."

"Fuck _me_ ," I said again.

"Give her a drink," he said wearily to Vila, who poured something green into a glass and brought it over to me. I drank some: it was pretty rough. Adrenaline and soma, I thought. I hadn't drunk that since the last-but-five time I was promoted. I coughed.

"Sorry," I said. "It's just - it's like being rescued by the fairies or something. Give me a minute to catch up."

I started to sit down on the floor where I was, which seemed perfectly sensible to me, but Tarrant caught me on the way down, steered me through a corridor to what must have been the flight deck of the _Liberator_ and sat me down on a leatherette couch thing. Fuck me, I thought, I'm on the flight deck of the _Liberator_ , and started laughing.

Avon had followed us through. He was scowling at Tarrant. I found that far easier to cope with than the blanked-out face he'd had on before.

"What the hell is this, Tarrant?"

I was still clutching my drink. I took a few more sips while I watched them. Tarrant was looking slightly shifty, I noticed.

"This is Siv Holland, Avon. The one who was feeding us information, whose distress call we picked up."

"I know who she is. What did you think you were playing at bringing her here? This is not a home for distressed Federation officers."

I put my drink down and touched my eyes. I didn't seem to be crying.

Tarrant gave a little soundless laugh of amazement. "You are a heartless bastard, Avon. Look at the poor girl! I'd say we owed her one. And, to put it in terms you'll understand, she could be useful to us."

Avon looked at me briefly. "Hardly," he said. "In any case, she's been under Federation interrogation -"

"Questioning," I mumbled. They ignored me.

" - for weeks now. They'll have any information she had."

"Questioning," I said again. "Not interrogation. It's different."

"Oh yes? What's the difference?" That was Avon.

"Questioning's for officers," I said.

"I didn't mean to deny your rank," he said smoothly and nastily. His face had gone blank again.

"No, I didn't mean that. I worked it out early on, when I was a bit more lucid. They knew I was passing information, not receiving it, so they don't bother with drugs or programming or whatever. It's just to show you you can't get away with it. I think that's what was going on. And to get you to confess so they can have a big glamorous trial. Have you got anything else to drink? This is rough."

"Did you confess?"

"I don't know. I probably did, though, don't you think? Thanks, by the way."

"I had nothing to do with it." He took my glass away.

"Thanks," I said to Tarrant. He sat down next to me and put his arm around me. I nearly flinched, but by tensing all my muscles up I managed to get hold of myself, and then made myself relax limb by limb. It felt quite nice once I calmed down, being touched like that.

"Like I said, I thought we were in your debt."

"Not any more," I said, and then I went to sleep.

************

I woke up on a big bed, in a big room. My back was giving me hell all of a sudden, low down, and all over me there were little bits of me that were hurting, but brightly, not resignedly any more. And I was warm. It was all a bit unexpected. I felt disorientated at first, then just embarrassed. The light had been left on, so I got up and went to the little cubicle in the corner of the room.

A shower. I've never felt so happy in my life. It was absurd.

I stayed under the hot water for ages and ages and ages, until I felt clean. There was washing liquid that smelt of berries. I wondered whose it was. Dayna's or Cally's, probably. It was nice. And then there was a clean towel. It nearly made me burst into tears.

I looked in the mirror. I looked rough. My hair was ridiculous - they had cropped it and it was starting to grow back in tufts and clumps of it were just missing. My face was okay, it wasn't injured or anything, but I looked really fucked up. I looked at myself for quite a long time. Siv Holland. Plain Siv Holland now. No rank, no number. But I guessed I'd survive.

I put on a purple jumpsuit thing that was on a chair in the room. It was too big for me over the bust, otherwise about the right size. I wasn't sure what the time was - or what timescale the ship was on - so I waited quietly for someone to come and get me, or ding for me on the intracom or whatever. It's surprising how easy it is not to get bored with the sensation of sitting in a warm, unguarded room, clean and dressed in civvies. I think I must have nodded back off at one point, though, because when I woke up it was suddenly.

The light was really bright and a siren was going off. I didn't know whether that was going to mean I was going to be taken out of the cell again or not, there was no way of telling, sometimes it did and sometimes it didn't. I was cold. That was the first thing I always noticed when I woke up. My muscles were tired out from pain. They didn't exactly hurt but there were places where pain had been, running through me like veins. I stayed really still in case moving would make me colder, and shut my eyes,  
but then I heard the door open and a couple of guards came in and pulled me off the bunk. We went to one of the questioning rooms, which was empty. I stood in front of the desk, they stood behind me in front of the door.

Another door, behind the desk, opened, and a woman in the Intelligence blacks came in.

"Space Commander Holland, Siv, deprived of rank for the duration of enquiries into dissident activity, number 273," I said, then I suddenly saw who it was. "Hello, Marka," I said over the computer saying "Voice print confirmed, questioning may proceed."

"Hello, Siv," she said, and shook my hand, holding my gaze. "You're the last person I ever expected to see here. Sit down."

I sat down, and the guards started strapping me in, and I started crying because just for a second I'd thought that now that my friend had come for me it was all over. It was ridiculous.

*********

When I woke up again it was because the intracom had dinged in the cabin. I jumped, then did a mental check of all my bits. I was a bit groggy, but basically fine.

"Siv?" someone's voice came through. It took me a little while to work out that the little triangular thing on the wall was the right thing to press.

"Hello?"

"Tarrant. We'll be meeting on the flight deck in half an hour. I'll be by to show you the way."

"Cheers." I sat up and dangled my legs off the edge of the bed, staring at the wall, trying to let myself relax into knowing it was all over now. All the lies and the double-playing and the headaches. Bridges burned. I really was with Blake now (in a manner of speaking). I really was on the _Liberator_. Mission accomplished. Now there was just a revolution to win. The way the last few months had been, that sounded like the easy bit.

*********

After the meeting on the flight deck with Cally, Dayna and Vila - which was  
memorable mostly because I got my first cup of tea for fucking weeks and it was bliss - Tarrant took me round the ship, which didn't help me much - the place was a warren. I couldn't see ever knowing my way round. We ended up in the med suite, anyway, and he insisted on giving me a scan.

I could feel the tea wearing off and I went a bit cold as I sat in the black chair and he ran the instrument over me. I forced myself to sit still but things were fading into my head - Marka's face, her voice, the way my eyes kept flicking away from the light to look at her finger on the button, then the alarm would go as the computer registered the movement of my eyes, and her finger would move and it would be my fault.

Tarrant's face faded back in, but it was blurry. I thought for a panicky second I was going blind, but I was just crying. Again.

"Hey," he said gently. "It's all right."

"Sorry," I said, and blinked, which made tears fall. He traced one of them down my face with a fingertip.

"You're safe now." He hesitated for a second, then leaned in and kissed me on the forehead. He drew back a little way and looked at me. I caught my breath, looking at him. His eyes were worried and human, asking for something and shy about it. It was so sweet. I needed it all the way down to my stomach. I needed to remember there were other things people wanted from me and other things my body could do. I needed something and I took it.

I kissed him on the mouth, softly and slowly, and his arms went round me and it was warm and sweet.

**************

After that, things settled down quickly and strangely. I went back and forth from being completely disorientated to feeling like I'd been on the _Liberator_ for my whole life. I suppose the situation was pretty normal for them, and occasionally I got seduced into thinking it was normal, but it wasn't. I couldn't work out what the five of them were doing together. Tarrant strutted around like only a man who's getting some can, Cally and Avon both drifted in and out of noticing the existence of the rest of us, Vila drank joylessly and out of boredom as far as I could tell (not that I blamed him), and from time to time beat me to a pulp at pool - it was a revelation to watch that man play - and Dayna pestered me for tales of what a bitch Servalan was and blackmailed the rest of the crew into behaving like a coherent group around her, through her youth and - well, I don't know. Dayna had something straightforward about her that the rest of us (them) didn't. I talked to her as often as I could, because I  
was seriously smitten with the sound of her voice, the way there was a laugh behind it, but sometimes it hurt to be around her.

It was mostly me and Dayna and Tarrant planning the mission. Cally would  
sometimes sit in on meetings or whatever with us, and make suggestions about specific problems, but she didn't volunteer any ideas and she usually drifted off after a while, her face closing back in on itself. Tarrant would always brief Avon on what we'd discussed and Avon would respond either with blank, polite dismissal, brushing him aside, or a sudden snarling kind of contempt. He was the moodiest man I'd ever been around, and his moods were like weather, they affected all of us. It was hard to  
see why they (we) cared, since as far as I could tell his position on the ship was like a cross between a landlord and a consultant scientist-stroke-oracle, but then he had a bizarre capacity for projecting a sulk across the whole ship. He was larger-than-life, like Blake had been. I wondered if it was because he'd actually been with Blake, but then I looked at Cally and Vila and dismissed that theory.

I carried on sleeping with Tarrant - like I say, I'm not good at being on my own and the _Liberator_ was about as far from the fight-together-all-day, drink-together-all-night, know-your-place, stick-with-your-friends vibe of the doughnut as you could get. And at that time I especially wasn't good at being on my own at night. So I took what I could where I could. But it was Avon I fancied most. Obviously. I mean, everybody does. He is like the pin-up terrorist. Even on the doughnut we used to indulge a bit in the occasional "what if you captured Avon and you were alone with him for a few days on the transport bringing him to justice...." fantasy. No such fucking luck for me, of course. The closest I got was about three weeks later.

************

I'd woken up in the night, and Tarrant had held me and talked to me through the worst of it, bless him, but you know, there's only so much someone else can do. By the time he'd fallen back asleep I was still a bit restless, so I went prowling off round the ship in Tarrant's dressing gown, which was obviously about six inches too long for me, to raid the fridge. It's like some deep biological urge, going to the galley when you can't sleep. I made myself a sandwich and some fantastic concoction of Cally's, a thick, hot chocolate-and-spice drink, then sat there with the lights on the lowest  
setting looking at the sandwich - I wasn't hungry - and smoking a tab and sipping my drink and reciting my times tables. Avon came in when I was on the twelves. He was wearing a really nice, thick, charcoal-grey dressing gown. With a hood.

"Hello," he said and went straight to the fridge (what did I tell you?)

"Can't sleep?"

He gave me a stern look.

"Me neither," I said. "Do you want this sandwich?"

"No."

He got loads of stuff out of the fridge which I swear wasn't there when I'd looked. Olives and shit like that. I wouldn't put it past him to have a secret compartment, you know. He was about to take his plate and mug off - probably to the flight deck. He liked sitting there.

"Will you talk to me, please?" I said suddenly. He turned and looked at me, a bit intensely, and his face - well, it didn't exactly soften, but it got a bit less fuck-off-and-die in its aspect. He came back and sat down, wrapping his fingers round his mug.

"All right. Are you having a bad night?"

"Yes," I said in a small voice.

"Would you like a game of chess?"

"Fuck, no."

"It would keep your mind occupied."

"No it wouldn't, Avon. Not if I was playing you. Ludo's more my level."

"All right. What shall we talk about?"

"Nothing demanding, please."

"You are in a bad way, aren't you?" he said and I felt like crying. "Perhaps we should get Orac to check you in the morning."

"I've had a physical. I'm fine. Don't go on about it."

"I didn't mean a physical."

"No."

"Its programming on psychic trauma is as advanced as the rest of it."

"No."

"It successfully deconstructed Blake's programming, once."

"That was programming. That was different. This what they did to me, it isn't the sort of thing that can be fixed like that." I really didn't want to talk about this. "When did Orac have to deconstruct Blake's programming? Are you telling me he was still under programming all the time until you got it?"

"No. It was triggered again during the LeGrand revolt."

"Oh fuck, I remember that revolt," I said and then I stopped because I'd been on the other side then. Although Governor LeGrand was a silly cow whatever side you were on.

"That was the time they promised Blake he'd be the Messiah of the Revolution. They really didn't need to use psycho-techniques on him. He thought he already was."

That was something I'd noticed about Avon. He hardly ever mentioned Blake, which I thought was weird to start with, but when he did he tended to keep the conversation firmly on the subject for a while.

"Yeah," I said. "He's a charismatic old bastard, all right."

"I'm sorry?" He looked up at me intently. There was something urgent in his eyes.

"Blake. He's quite a presence."

"You've met him?"

"Didn't you know? I said, when I first contacted you. So you'd have something against me, you know, so you could trust me or whatever."

His mouth tightened a bit. "No," he said softly. His body moved into a strange position, limp and menacing all at the same time. It was like I'd hit a button marked 'instant sultry' or something. It was tremendously seductive. "No, Tarrant took all the messages from you. He never mentioned it. When exactly did you see him? After your defection, I hope."

"Oh, fuck, yeah. I wasn't assigned on _Lib_ patrol much." I was getting a bit uncomfortable. And aroused. All at the same time. "Um, it wasn't a big deal or anything. He was at the same camp as me, on Rephlar-12 ..."

"Rephlar-12?" He leant forward so his face was very close to mine. His voice was deadly.

"Yeah. But he left. I think. Last I heard he was on his way to the Lauritol system with Stratter Fenn and that lot."

He relaxed slightly, but he kept his eyes on mine. "Yes. Yes, that's the last we heard, too. But you saw him. Was he all right?"

The question was simple, I know, but the way he said it - I can't really explain it. Very edgy, like he had a gun on me. This was turning into a very peculiar encounter. I didn't know what to say, and I suddenly felt a bit scared.

"Right as rain, as far as I could tell. I didn't see that much of him. He used to hang about with Fenn and the rebel groupies most of the time." I trailed off.

"Did he say anything about Jenna? Jenna Stanis?"

"No, I don't think so. Not to me, anyway. I haven't been able to make contact with him or Fenn since I got back to the doughnut."

He smiled. "Well now," he said softly. His face was still very close to mine and he was just giving off waves of sex, I swear, and I put my finger on his chin and pulled his face close to mine to kiss him, but he extricated himself. Very delicately and all, but I felt like a complete twat just the same.

"What was that for?" he said, still very sultry, then added: "Curiosity?" with an ironic look.

I went red, which was so embarrassing that I went redder. "Mixed signals. I thought - "

He looked at me curiously for a second, then said: "I assumed you knew I was ... with Blake."

"Well, of course I - Oh. You mean..."

"In the vernacular sense."

"Fuck me," I said. "You're _gay_? And Blake? You and Blake are both gay?"

"Surely that was common knowledge."

"Well, you know. People used to say things about Blake, but - well, they said he was a child abuser as well. _That's_ not -"

"No," he said firmly.

"Good. Fuck. Blake was your _boyfriend_?"

He made a small face.

"You must miss him."

He ate an olive and didn't say anything.

"Hang on," I said suddenly. "I thought - Are you really gay? This isn't just some big attempt to avoid having to shag me, is it? Because you needn't go quite that far, you know. I would take no for an answer."

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, I thought you had a girlfriend. You know, when you were first arrested. There was a lass picked up with you, wasn't there?"

The limp menacing thing came back, and the grainy voice. "Anna Grant. Yes."

"There," I said.

"What?"

"That. What you're doing now. That comes across as a come-on, you know."

He frowned. "I know. It's got me into trouble before. I have never understood why people interpret controlled anger as a sexual invitation. "  
"For controlled, read smouldering," I said. "Can I have an olive?"

He gave me one. I think I confused him into it. He was usually as grouchy about his olives as he was about his coke, the old miser.

"How do you know about Anna Grant?"

"Oh, fuck, I don't know. We all got pretty thoroughly briefed on all your criminal records. You lot and the other big-shots, obviously. All part of Herself's obsessive-compulsive chic."

"I haven't thought about Anna for a long time," he said quietly. He was looking past me, and he'd dropped the smouldering thing. He looked tired.

"Well," I said lamely, then: "Sorry."

"Hmm? It's all right. Perhaps in future we should stick to playing chess, though."

I smiled at him. "Do you want another drink?"

"Please."

While I was fannying about with Cally's jar of lovely chocolate powder (marked CALLY'S! in big letters) with my back to him, he suddenly said: "I wasn't tortured, you know."

I didn't really know what to say to that, so I said "Oh."

"I've never understood that. Why she went through it and I didn't."

"Well, they knew you were guilty, I guess." I was actually finished at the counter, but I stayed with my back to him unscrewing and rescrewing the lid of the jar. It seemed easier.

"That doesn't usually stop them."

"No. Nothing usually stops them. Nothing." I felt very cold and it was hard to breathe. I lit up another tab. It's a very difficult feeling to describe, but - no, bollocks, it's an easy feeling to describe, but you can't get it across really, the words don't work. It has to be in your body. It's the feeling that nothing is safe and nothing makes any sense. That's it. Not very dramatic. It involves feeling cold and small and sick and sort of un-anchored or something, at the same time.

"Except death."

"Well," I said. "That's Shrinker for you." I had to say something to keep the conversation going, because that was all that was anchoring me in this place where I wasn't being hurt and asked senseless things. By Marka.

"Shrinker?"

I could look at him then. His voice had changed. I brought the drinks back over.

"He's in Intelligence. He was assigned to that case."

"Assigned to that case," Avon said softly. "I wonder if he could have - done his job - without words like that. Euphemisms like that."

"Probably. He's pretty much a complete fucker."

"You know him?"

"No. But I had a friend in Intelligence, and she gave me the gossip."

"Pleasant company you keep."

"Kept, Avon, fuck you. You don't know anything about it," I said, and I heard my voice turn ugly so I walked out.

He said something as I left. I think it was: "Not yet."

CHAPTER TWO

It was twelve hours before we were scheduled to rendezvous with the GLF on Gavisus Protos and I was sitting in Tarrant's cabin, bouncing one foot off the other and buzzing like a bastard. Finally something was going to happen. Finally it was going to be me and a gun and a bunch of hardcore fucking rebels, not me and a pool cue and a bunch of hardcore fucking nutters drifting round the galaxy getting on each other's tits or keeping out of each other's way.

I dinged Tarrant on the intracom.

Tarrant was a bit like me, and he reminded me a bit of Deelan. We were  
straightforward types. Not mooching about thinking about ex-lovers and ex-leaders and abstruse bits of computer programming and planets we'd been exiled from. Resistance cell? It was more like a wing of a psychiatric hospital that all the doctors had forgotten about years ago, five patients playing cards and filling in the time while they waited for Blake, the Great Analyst, to show up and make everything all right, casting paranoid glances out of the windows and arguing past each other about who the enemy was. They'd abdicated all responsibility. It was a pile of arse.

I missed Space Command. I missed the strategy computer. I missed giving orders. I missed being assigned to a new sector every other week. I missed there being a point to what I did.

But now it was finally going to happen and I was absolutely high on it. I needed to come down a bit.

When Tarrant arrived I hardly let him get through the door before I'd launched myself at him and kissed him with great determination and skill. He pulled back slightly.

"What's this about, Siv?"

"I need to..." I was pressing up against him, pushing one leg between his, pressing my stomach against his groin (he's a tall bastard), kissing him between words, "... work off some energy. Want to help?"

He held me still against him, then lifted me up. I wrapped my legs round his waist and he carried me over to the bed.

"Any way I can, Siv," he whispered against my ear, and began unbuttoning my top, following each slowly-undone inch of fabric with his tongue, stroking a thigh with his other hand. I squirmed under him until I was finally naked and he was kissing me, one long finger ponderously and - I know it's a strange word, but - *decorously*, as if he was giving me a haircut or something, circling on my clitoris, just a bit too lightly and slowly to be any use whatsoever.

"I haven't got the patience for this," I told him. He looked slightly hurt - those puppy-dog eyes! "I want your big cock in me."

I've yet to meet a man who's not a sucker for hearing the phrase "your big cock" in a dirty whisper. Certainly not Tarrant, who happily let me roll him over and get his clothes off and push myself down onto his cock and start moving over him, over and around, squeezing him as I pushed down, loosening a little as I pulled up.

I wanted it hard and fast and dirty. I wanted to sweat and struggle with and against someone. I leaned forward and down and bit his shoulder.

"Ow," he said, reaching to hold my hips still. "Calm down, Siv. Slow down a bit. You're... I want this to be gentle for you."

" _Please_ , Tarrant." He was strong and I couldn't move much, but I ground a little against his hipbones, in circles. "Come on. Come on. I don't want gentle. I want you to fuck me. Come on. Put your back into it. Hard."

I know I shouldn't moan about Tarrant's chivalry, as it probably saved me from a show trial and execution or mind-wiping or something, but this wasn't really the forum for it. Fuck knows what they taught the boys at FSA at puberty lessons, when they split us up and took the lasses off to tell us about blow jobs, and the latest laser-designed, self-adjusting, slide-mounted, self-sealing-after-use Tampax (only two credits a box or free from your quartermaster if you're on active assignment).

Anyway, I leant forward again, kissing his mouth and biting his ears and whispering "fuck me" into them, and eventually, thank fuck, it short-circuited whatever bollocks he'd been hypnopaedically infected with or however they did it ("always please your partner by these rules and if she shows any other desires ignore them"), and he rolled over on top of me and started pumping away like a teenage boy in his first brothel, and it was fucking great. I fought to roll back on top of him and he fought to keep me  
down and our bodies were slamming against each other hard enough to bruise and our muscles were working hard enough to make us sweat and pant. Sometimes it's that kind of feeling that's the hardest to choreograph. I dug my fingers into his shoulders and started walking them down his back towards his buttocks. He was muttering "Is this what you want? Is this what you want?" and I was muttering "Yes. Yes. Fuck me. That's right," etc. It wasn't very edifying. I felt myself getting closer and closer, and I felt his thrusts get faster and more random and blind, so I started running  
a finger round the little tight circle of his arse, nudging the tip of it a little way inside, but I felt him tense up.

"What are you... Don't do that," he said. He sounded slightly incredulous. I paid no attention to him, but he pulled my hand away and clamped it by the wrist to the mattress by my head, and I considered myself told.

"Do you not like it?"

"Of course not," he said gruffly, looking away from me. "I like *this*," and he thrust in hard and deep again. "I like you."

"Ahh," I said a bit breathlessly, feeling an orgasm start to make itself known about five minutes away. "That's right. That's right. Go on, Tarrant, go on."

"Mrgh," he said, getting faster and faster until, all of a sudden, he thrust impossibly deep into my cunt and froze and made a peculiar high moaning sound. I felt his cock twitching inside me, and then he collapsed on top of me in a big sweaty - and slightly frustrating, it has to be said - pile.

"Sorry," he said a minute later, raising his head off my chest to give me a grin that was somewhere between boyish and sheepish. Lambish? "You don't know what you do to me, Siv."

"Hmph," I said a bit grumpily.

"Let me make it up to you," he said and put his fingers on my clitoris, but I couldn't be going through all that down-a-bit-up-a-bit palaver so I pulled three of his fingers inside me and let him fuck me with them while I worked my own clit, looking into his eyes until I came, noisily and satisfactorily, and settled back down against him.

He cleared his throat, looking a bit shy.

"I've never..." he started. "Um. I've never done that before. Watched, I mean."

"You weren't just watching. You were performing an important function," I said drowsily.

"I liked it."

Fuck, but that boy was sweet. He made me feel utterly depraved.

"Did you?"

"Yes," he said and pulled my hand down to his cock, which, almost incredibly, was beginning to be hard again.

" _Marvellous_ ," I said and kissed him, and well, what with one thing and another, two hours passed and it was ten hours until the rendezvous when I fell asleep.

I must have had an anxiety dream or something because I woke up with my heart going so fast it was humming, not beating, straight into another of those incredibly vivid memories.

*********

It was the end of one of our sessions. The doctor was checking me over. Marka was standing at the desk getting her trendy silver briefcase in order before moving to her next client. I felt sick and disorientated, not quite sure how big or small I was or where the end of my body was. And I was in pain, of course; it seems stupid even to mention it.

She looked over at me, and said: "This isn't an easy job for me either, Siv. You know that. You remember all the times you had to come over and hold my hand because I didn't want to have to go in the next day."

I didn't say anything.

She finished loading her case up, and came over to stand beside my chair. She laid her hand on my forehead quickly; it was cool. "You're doing very well. Really. We should be finished quite soon, in a couple more weeks maybe, and then you can go for trial. I'm proud of you, you know."

She gave me a quick smile and turned to go, her high heels loud on the floor.

"Marka," I said.

"Yes?"

"Can you - Is Dee still being held?"

She set her briefcase back down on the desk. "Yes, he is. We've been able to release Vannon, fully cleared, but obviously Space Commander Rexel is a high security risk and we need to make certain."

"Can you take a message to him?"

"What?" she asked carefully.

I closed my eyes while the doctor did something slightly painful to my back - I was getting worried about my back.

"Nothing. Tell him - I can't give you a message, you'll think it's a code. Just - please, Marka, something."

"If you think he wants to hear it," she said, and checked something on the desk screen. "Doctor?"

"Yes?"

"Will the subject be fit to continue for another - say, half an hour to an hour?"

"Perfectly, Investigator. The areas of potential permanent remain the same."

"Thank you," she said, and he left. She passed a hand over her face, shaking slightly. I had started to cry.

"Just another hour, Siv. Be brave. You've never been this able to speak at the end of a session before. We need to do some more work now. You heard the doctor: you can take it. Stand up, please, arms outstretched, looking into the light, and we'll talk."

************

The vividness faded there, but there was quite a lot more of that flashback in feelings and quick pictures and phrases, in Marka's soft, upper-class, reasonable voice, endless, meaningless, impossible to answer, taking my mind apart the way the pain took my body apart. When Tarrant put his arms round me I hit him, then suddenly realized where I was and that I was crying noisily. It took me a couple of minutes to stop, and then all of a sudden Tarrant's arms around me and his quiet soothing felt suffocating.  
That wasn't who I was. I needed someone who - For fuck's sake, even Marka had known who I was, she'd had more respect for me than this.

I wondered if I was going off my head, and got out of bed.

"Siv? Are you all right? Come back here."

"I can't. Leave me alone."

Five hours to the rendezvous. I went to my own cabin and and got washed and  
dressed, then went over to the shooting range. Dayna was there, thank fuck, and we had a hard, fast competition, which she won on points. I was jittery and I shot a couple of civilians in the first hour, which struck me as ironic. I got tired before her, as well.

Three hours to the rendezvous. Two hours till the final briefing. One hour before I could reasonably start getting kitted up. I thought of Servalan suddenly and ludicrously, wondering if the whole full-evening-dress, heels and makeup thing was just to defuse her nerves before she went out on active service. Maybe if I went into the costume store and spent the next two hours choosing an outfit....

I ended up in the kitchen, of course, drinking tea, or something like tea but without the diuretic ingredients. I was near enough pissing myself already.

One hour to the rendezvous. Tarrant, Dayna, Cally and I were on the flight deck, running through contingency plans and the codes Cally and I had been working on. At my insistence. Apparently they didn't usually bother. Like I said, hardly a hotbed of revolution.

****************

The Gavisus Liberation Force were a contact I had made through the RCP (the  
Rephlar Comminution Party, who had disbanded pending a more favourable time for revolutionary activity). They were planning an attack on a Federation munitions research plant, where they had an insider planted: we were going to go in with them, nick a load of prototypes (for Dayna) and information (for Dayna and Avon), blow the place up, hope for a general uprising, and possibly garner a couple of recruits, contacts, information, etc.

*****************

Three hours later, and I was hiding in a cupboard with Dayna, Tarrant and the rebels' insider from the munitions institute, whose name had completely dissolved in the adrenaline-endorphins which were holding me together. He was carrying a box of data cubes, Dayna was holding a couple of prototype side-arms, and Tarrant and I were covering the door and worrying about the time. The rest of the cell were laying charges round the building and we had about five minutes to get out.

I stuck my gun, closely followed by my head, round the corner, saw a uniform, had a moment of white confusion, fired. He fell. My first Federation kill. In my mind I saw the faces of the troopers I'd had under me in my first command, and I felt sick but unbearably excited still. I wanted to scream, but instead I ran, and the others followed me. I killed about four more before we got outside.

We met up with the rest of the GLF cell on the edge of a forest about half a mile from the target, and Tarrant put his arm round me in silence. I felt myself shaking against him as we watched - and heard, and felt - the building go up. My hand slipped, sweaty, on the handle of my gun. I wiped it on my trousers, watching the smoke drifting upwards, feeling a hard, sick triumph passing through all our minds.

Next.

I heard a gun go off.

I looked round and Amben - my first contact, the leader of the cell - had shot a man in an unfamiliar navy-and-white uniform. He caught my eye. "Police," he said briefly.

Next.

We were all on our feet, back to back, shooting wildly through the leaves. There was the sound of bodies falling.

Then we were running, again, following Amben through twisting half-paths, getting scratched. Dayna fell over and I helped her up. The little insider guy dropped his box and Tarrant picked it up. Amben shot two more policemen, I shot one, Betok shot one, and then there weren't any more and we were climbing a tree, one after another. There was a little boxy hut thing in the branches, screened with leaves and twigs. We all climbed in.

"What the fuck is going on?" I shouted, unhelpfully. Tarrant put his hand on my arm and I shook it off furiously.

"We must have misjudged," said the munitions bloke.

"We've fucked up," Amben said. "I thought - we were led to believe that the  
government mood was half-hearted. They found us too fast. The pro-Federation party must have the upper hand again. We're going to have to get off the planet. Betok?"

"All set up," he said, breathing heavily. "Cargo hold of the _Lara Croft_. Launching in three hours. Courell piloting. If we're there he'll take us straight to the base on the next system."

"All of us?" I said.

He glanced at me. "There's space for us all."

"Siv," said Tarrant. "What do you mean? We've got to get back."

"Why? We need a planetary base, you've said so before," then to Betok: "What's your base like? Is it safe?"

"Safe enough. From the Federation, at least. It's an open planet," (ouch, I thought) "but there's room for us and a few of our people have begun to set up operations there."

"See?" I said to Tarrant. Dayna was keeping herself clear of the situation, peering out of an observation point, gun in hand, her body tense and ready.

"Our first priority has to be to get this information back to the _Liberator_ ," said Tarrant, and brought his wrist up to his face. "Cally. Three to come up. Now."

" _Tarrant_!" I howled, but it was too late and the staticky feeling of the teleport beam was all through me.

CODA

And for the second time I found myself in the teleport bay of the _Liberator_ , looking at faces that really were people I knew, now. Vila was sitting by Cally, and a half-finished game of chess was laid out between them.

"Where's Avon?" said Tarrant.

"Here," he said, walking in. "No new recruits for the cause, then?"

"We did what we went for," said Dayna, and Tarrant handed Avon the box of scrips. Smugly. Avon looked at him with deliberate blankness.

"Did we?" I said. I was still standing in the teleport bay.

"Yes," said Dayna, and this time there wasn't laughter behind her voice, but something proud and the beginning of something hard, like Tarrant, like Avon, like me. "We've got the information, and the prototypes, and the munitions institution is gone. Three out of three."

"We've got nowhere. Put us back down, Cally. We need to get back to the GLF cell."

Cally didn't move. She looked at Tarrant.

"Oh come on, Siv, you heard them," he said. "They're moving on. There's nothing we can do for them now."

"So why don't we go with them? We'll just lose them. We'll lose touch with _them_ as well as Blake. You can't - We can't go on like this, chasing asteroids and picking up crystals while the rebellion is going on somewhere else."

I looked around. They were there, all five of them, standing together against me, and all of a sudden it felt like I was back in the court-martial room trying to talk to people turned by circumstance into parts of a single machine. Five faces that had gone cold as soon as I said the word 'Blake.' Nothing was ever going to change on the Liberator. Whatever they did after I was gone, whatever they decided to chase, nothing was ever  
going to change.

"Put me back down," I said.

"Siv," said Tarrant in his best be-reasonable voice, which itched. "Calm down. Get her a drink, Vila."

I drew my gun.

"Put me back down," I said again. "Now."

"Now just wait a minute," Tarrant started, but Avon had reached over, deliberately bored, and put his hand on the bank of switches.

"Take off the gun," he said. "I'll come down with you and bring your bracelet back."

I did as he said, and took my last look at the crew of the fabled fucking _Liberator_ as he came to stand beside me in the bay. I could feel the absence that held them together, and I thought I was beginning to understand.

********

On the planet, I took my bracelet off and handed it to Avon.

"What are you going to do?" I couldn't help saying it. "Avon? If the GLF isn't enough... what are you going to do now?"

He finished clipping my bracelet to his belt and looked at me with his smoothest face. "Sometimes just a word is enough. Just a name. That at least I thank you for."

"What?"

"Good luck with the Revolution," he said, and was gone.

**************

The four of us were about to set off, and I was still wondering what Avon had been going on about, so I turned to the little bloke who'd got us out of the institution.

"I'm sorry," I said, "I've forgotten your name."

"Deva," he said. And we started walking, towards the cargo spaceport, and the _Lara Croft_ , and the base on the open planet, and the beginning of something.

THE END


End file.
